Albany. N.Y. First Presbyterian Church 


Commemorative Discourses on the Occasion of the 
Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Dedication of the 
Present Edifice «... 23 May, 1909, 


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The First Presbyterian Church 


Founded in 1763 


Albany, New York. 


Commemorative Discourses 


on the occasion of the 


Twenty-fifth Anniversary 
of the 


Dedication of the Present Edifice 
Corner State and Willett Streets 


23 May 1909 


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FOREWORD 


When a church has lived nearly one hundred and 
fifty years its lesser anniversaries do not make great 
impressions. Yet a quarter-century should not pass 
unmarked. 

It was in 1883-1884, during the pastorate of Rev. 
Walter D. Nicholas, that the present edifice— 
the fourth in the history of the organization—was 
erected. On March 16th of the latter year the first ser- 
vice was held in the chapel; on Easter Sunday, April 
13th, the people gathered for their first hour of worship 
in the church, and on May 18th the building was dedi- 
cated to God. The morning sermon was given by Rev. 
Samuel A. Mutchmore, D. D., LL. D.; the evening by 
Revs Penty Van, Dyke, D. D. LL.D. 

With the coming of this year of 1909, the Session 
believed it wise to mark, simply but sufficiently, the 
“Twenty-fifth Anniversary.” In the chapel Tuesday 
evening, March 16th, Rev. Henry T. McEwen, D. D., of 
Amsterdam, spoke of “Prayer.” In the same room, 
Friday evening, May 21st, Edward M. Cameron, Clerk of 
the Session, gave a brief account of the church as it was 
in 1884, and Rev. William Force Whitaker, D. D., of 
Elizabeth, N. J., Minister to this church for half the 
period in review, recounted many of the changes in the 
religious and other life of the land which these twenty- 
five years have witnessed. On Sunday morning, May 
23rd, President Francis Brown, D. D., LL. D., of Union 
Theological Seminary, New York, preached on the 
theme, “The Church: a Light and a Voice.” At the 
evening service Mr. Victor H. Paltsits, State Historian 
and one of our own members, told the story of “The 
Beginnings of Presbyterianism in Albany.” These two 
addresses, at the request of the Session, by the kindness 
of their authors and through the co-operation of the 
Trustees, are herein presented as a memorial of the feast 
we kept. 


Yet only through reading and remembering them 
will they yield to us their full values; the one inspiring 
us by its record of our forebears with their devoted 
fidelity, the other by its resonant call to the Church’s 
high privilege and duty in these and coming days—a 
call not hushed until that land is reached where there 
shall be no temple. 


WM. HERMAN HOPKINS, Minister. 


September, 1909. 


THE CHURCH: A LIGHT AND 


A VOICE 
by 
PRESIDENT FRANCIS BROWN, D.D., LL. D., 
Union Theological Seminary, New York 


PHILIPPIANS—2:15, 16: “Among whom ye are 
seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of 
lite.’ 


Two figures,—the light and the voice,—each 
describing Christian power—shining, speaking,—some- 
thing seen and heard, a beacon, a guide, an offer, a pro- 
gramme, asummons. The Church of Christ is that kind 
of a thing. Christ means it to be that. Christ himself 
is that. If his church is not that it is not really his 
Church. 

This building in which we are, and which was 
offered to God twenty-five years ago, was built to be the 
home of a company of people trying to be just that—a 
light that shines, a voice that calls. That was the whole 
significance of the first dedication service. You did not 
build a club house, nor a museum, not a place to be 
luxurious in, and meet your well-dressed neighbors, not 
a place to store mummies in, or old stones. It was for a 
light-house, a muezzin’s tower, a power-house, an 
armory, an arsenal, a hall of prophecy, a centre for 
bringing people to God,—the home of a living Church, 
living out Christ,—speaking out Christ——to men. The 
significance of the dwelling is its fitness for the family. 
The church home has meaning from the quality of the 
church that inhabits it. 

That is how this building came to be a house of God. 
Temples in the old sense, were houses of the gods 
because gods lived in them, and you had to come to them 
to find the god. But our God does not sit inactive inside 


5 


these walls the week through, waiting for us to come to 
him on Sunday. He is here, but not merely here. This 
house belongs to him, but so do all houses. He is here 
especially, because human hearts are here, and in these 
he dwells. God came in here with us. The beauty and 
quiet and worship of this place make it easier for us to 
listen to him. But the more familiar we are with him 
elsewhere, the more surely we shall find him here. Idle 
vanity will not find him here, till he makes his way into 
the vain and idle heart. Varnished worldliness will not 
find him here, till he breaks his way into its citadel in 
the soul. Selfishness, pride, lust will not find him here, 
nor carry his benediction with them when they leave. 
There is no magic in this place. This is a home built for 
a real church. A real, living church will meet its God 
here, having come up with him, and going out through 
these doors in his company. 


Associations have gathered round the place. Wed- 
dings have brightened it, and funerals have solemnized 
it. You have come to associate it with praises and with 
prayers, with sacraments and with vital experiences of 
your souls. Many of you learned eternal things in it 
when you were children, as your children are beginning 
to learn them now. Its atmosphere is enriched with the 
memories of good men and women, with strong pur- 
poses, with quiet sacrifices, with patient bearing of bur- 
dens. These things interpret God to you in proportion 
to the response of your souls to God. He is as near you 
while you are buying and selling, or pleading, or heal- 
ing, or sweeping and baking, or learning your school- 
book lessons, as he is under this roof; but the pressing 
associations of pulpit and pew, of word and of music, 
have the power to set the doors of our hearts ajar, like 
the pressure of unseen hands, so that God can find a 
straighter way in. And there is more of him here only 
as you are ready for more of him here. 


It is always, and everywhere, you that he wants, and 
seeks and must have, to get his way. All this beauty 
and harmony befit his presence and praise, but it is not 
to the purpose, as from you, unless you give yourselves 
in it. This building is meaningless,—a deceitful sham, 
except as the proper home for a living church, that shines 
as a light in the world, that offers the word of life. 

The significance had by this edifice for this quarter 
century—of course only a small segment of the long life 
of the organism that lives in it—can be measured in 
these terms only. It has been a fit gift to God to the 
degree in which the church living in it has known its 
power, and used its power. 

Now I have not been asked to come here for a 
lecture on the history of a church. It is right that this 
should form part of your anniversary observance. But 
it is not my part. In fact, I think it is hardly safe to 
look back much on the past, unless you have the right 
view forward into the future. It is senile to live in the 
past. History shrivels us if we simply live on our 
history. Good history is magnificent, if we use our his- 
tory as a momentum for the future. The opportunities 
of life are ahead of us, not behind. We do not get to 
the top of the hill by sitting down half way and looking 
toward the bottom we came from. We stop to take 
breath and enjoy the view, and know all the while that 
we have business ahead of us, yet. The real thing is that 
the church shall know its power, and use its power. 

It is about this that I would like to speak for a little 
while. 


1. To know its power a Christian church must 
know its God. Religious progress has been made 
through the ages by knowing God better. It is a knowl- 
edge that makes things move. God is the great force. 
To know him makes connection with the moving force 
of things, as the shoe presses on the electric rail. God 
is the same, always, but knowledge of him has not been 


7 


the same always. Niagara does not change much, day 
by day, but it is one thing to hear its roar in the dark, 
and another thing to catch a glimpse of it by a lightning 
flash, and still another thing to see it on a sparkling June 
morning, with the glint of the sunshine on every bead 
of it, and watch the majestic, smooth, thundering flow of 
its water as it drops into the abyss. God does not 
change, but men know him better. His unknown 
changelessness is not like a statue’s, immovable behind a 
veil. He has always gone about his work among men, 
while films on human eyes have prevented their seeing 
him. And how slowly the film has been absorbed and 
the dimness cleared away! Men have thought they saw 
hundreds of him, when he was only one. They have 
thought that he was just mightier than they, and there- 
fore awful, and they were afraid of him. Then when 
they found that he was kind, and was protecting them, 
they thought he was merely a great fighter—for they 
were used to protect themselves by fighting. Then they 
began to see that he was righteous, and that the con- 
science in their breasts echoed him. And they saw that 
he was wise, planning for the world. And they per- 
ceived that no other purpose had a chance, in rivalry 
with his. And so it went on until Jesus came, and let 
men see the heart of God. And what sits at the heart 
of God? Not terrifying strength, for here was a man 
who grew tired and hungry and could die, and yet God 
was in him. Not the dash of the soldier, for he sur- 
rendered and refused to fight, and let them kill him, and 
prayed for his murderers; and yet God was in him. Not 
the sternness of rigid morals, though this man’s life was 
spotless, for sinful people felt drawn to him, and he 
spoke gently to them, and held them in his company, and 
yet God was in him. Not wisdom, even, though he 
could read men’s hearts with sympathetic insight, for 
there was a day and an hour that he did not know, and 
yet God was in him. Those high qualities which men 


8 


had seen in God before him did not vanish out of God, 
but none of them was the central, commanding thing in 
God. God could not show himself in a man by these 
things. At the heart of Jesus was the burning purpose 
to give himself to men—and that expressed the heart of 
God. Jesus made it plain that if God was strong, it was 
most of all strength of loving desire; that if God was 
kind, it was most of all the will to implant his kindness 
in human souls; that if he was righteous, it was most of 
all to teach men how to live in righteousness together, 
and with him; that if his was a controlling mind, it was 
a mind planning no aggrandizement for himself, but a 
royal heritage of noble life for his men and women. God 
was seeking, first and last and always, not to gather up 
all things to enrich himself, but to give all things, and 
himself too, to the people whom he loved more than he 
did himself. If God was in Jesus, this is what God 
is at the heart of him, for this is what Jesus was, and so 
Jesus lived. 

Men have long believed in God and in Jesus Christ, 
and souls of beauty have been nurtured by this faith, and 
lives of devotion lived. But the church at large is only 
just opening its eyes widely to the God who lived in 
Jesus. We are now daring to believe that God is as 
simple and tender and great in self-sacrifice as Jesus 
showed himself to be. Let me beg you to make this 
epoch in the condition of your church life the beginning 
of a new era by the simple conviction that when you see 
the life of Jesus you see, without quibble or reserve, the 
very centre and heart of the energies of God. 


2—To know its power, the Christian Church must 
know its God as Jesus shows him. To use its power, the 
Christian Church must be one with its God. “Let this 
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” Paul 
said. God must not be a spectacle to you, which you 
admire. He must be a life to you, which throbs in your 
pulses. Everyone who is ready to share this life of God 


9 


belongs in the Church. The real church, the church 
whose members God sees to be his in spirit, are those 
who are united to him by taking over into their being 
his love and his purpose and the consecration of Jesus 
Christ to ends outside himself. For every such child of 
God the church of God must have a welcome. At bottom 
the one important question to put to each applicant is 
this: Do you know Jesus Christ, and do you find your 
God in Jesus Christ? Is there anything better than 
Jesus Christ? Is your best thing—the motive that thrills 
you, the wish you will die for—in Jesus Christ? Then 
you are in his real church already, and any human device 
that prevents the church of men from recognizing you is 
a grave impertinence toward God. Long-drawn creeds 
are not in place for this purpose. Elaborate doctrines of 
the schoolmen do not determine men’s relation to God. 
No church may dare to reject what God accepts, nor 
presume to accept what God rejects. I am not belittling 
theology ; I am saying that a knowledge of what God is, 
is the great theology. It is the profoundest theology, 
that God is of a kind that does not ask first what theories 
men hold, but what life they desire to live ;—that selfish- 
ness is worse than doubt whether Jesus had the sub- 
stance of God; that the man who makes his profit out of 
little children whose stunted bodies and shrivelled minds 
are the price of their toil in his factories is the real 
atheist, however piously he bows his head, or however 
large his contribution to the expenses of the church; 
that not even sorrow over past sins, and placid joy in 
having Jesus as one’s Redeemer, guarantees religion, 
without the purpose of service in Jesus’ name. 

This is a great theology. It shifts the emphasis, and 
sets it where it belongs. No doubt it is a telling ques- 
tion, whether Jesus incarnates the life of God. But it is 
a yet deeper question what kind of a God is it that Jesus 
incarnates? If you get at the real God through Jesus, it 
makes far less matter what you call the relation between 


10 


Jesus and God, than if you call Jesus God, and think of 
God as a pagan might think of him—as arbitrary power, 
or cold justice, or self-centred majesty, or a sharp 
inquisitor, or anything else than the kind of a person 
Jesus was. Men have sometimes thought their God 
dwelt in a stone, or a tree, or a crocodile, or an autocrat 
on a human throne. Ii your God can find room in any 
of these, as well as in a man like Jesus, then it makes no 
difference which of them he lives in, or whether he lives 
in any. The great thing is to have a God who could find 
no visible home except in a perfect man ready to die to 
save other men, like Jesus Christ. 

The arch-heretic is not the man who doubts whether 
the Bible has all its dates right, or all its authors cor- 
rectly named, or even whether all its opinions are 
eternal verities; nor is he ihe man who hesitates to 
express the divinity of Christ in terms of ancient meta- 
physics—but the man whose God is controlled by 
another spirit than that of love and sacrifice which Jesus 
Christ shows men. Once believe that God is simply like 
Jesus—lives in Jesus, except for the limitations of a man, 
and you believe all you need to believe about Jesus’ 
Incarnation of God. 

A church with that belief is ready to preach the 
Gospel to the world. And till it gets that belief, it has no 
gospel, which, in the long run, is worth the preaching. 


3—For the Church lives, in proportion as it sets 
forth its God. What makes the church like God is for- 
getting itself in its opportunity. The church does not 
exist for the salvation of its members. It is not an ark 
of safety. It exists for rescue. It isa life-boat. It is not 
a conservative force, to keep things as they are. Itisa 
revolutionary force, to change things radically. It will 
disturb society and not soothe it, until society grows God 
like. It does not exist for the sake of its services of 
worship. These exist for the sake of its larger mission. 
Eloquence is good in its pulpit, if it makes entrance into 


11 


human hearts for the spirit of Jesus Christ. Music is 
good from its organ and its choir, and the united voices 
of its congregation, if it expresses real thankfulness and 
praise, and sends people out with uplift and heartier 
intent to serve. Pictures would be good if they touched 
the soul with finer reverence, and made the divine more 
actively real. These things have often come between the 
soul and God—like non-conducting blankets, instead of 
connecting wires. It need not be so. The arts are of 
God, and have power for ministry. But it will always be 
so, unless the life of the Church is mastered and moulded 
by the sacrificial life of God. 

To go to church is a good habit, but in itself it is not 
piety. The doctor who drives ten miles away from 
church, wholly absorbed in the thought that he must 
bring back a needed life from the edge of the grave, 
worships more truly than the man who is religious here, 
and never makes you think of Jesus Christ through the 
week, or the woman who feels more at home with her 
calling list than with her God and the needs of his world. 

I do not mean that God is censorious about these 
lesser things. He does not ask us to live always on 
mountain-peaks and breathe rarified air only. The 
church is a place to rest in, a place for gathering of mind 
and quietness, away from the distractions of the world, a 
place for penitence and forgiveness and relief from bur- 
dens of many kinds, a place to help us do better the 
small things of every day. Do not grudge its standing 
open on week days and all day long, in case some wan- 
dering child should stray into it, and find tonic in one 
breath of the atmosphere of heaven. Do not make it 
something apart from the common interests of life. Let 
it be not a strange, but a familiar thing, and feel it no 
descent to pass from it to the ordinary demands of 
human fellowship, in your family or in the town. But 
try to learn the lesson of God in Jesus, by means of it, 
so that all its manifestations shall help you to live more 
simply and generously, like him. 


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4—So the Church is to bring the life of God into 
human affairs. It is a daring programme. It deals with 
the very roots of things. We are not going to transform 
life by raking the dead leaves off its surface, or even by 
pulling up a few ugly weeds. We have got to turn up 
the soil, by deep ploughing, and sow much new seed, 
and tend crops for the harvesting which hitherto have 
been strange. 

Take your own personal life. What is its command- 
ing purpose? how far does it reach? What is the pivot 
on which it turns? Are you after things for yourself? 
Are you thinking how you shall get on? I mean, is that 
the ultimate thing you are working and pushing for? 
How much of your time, and hearty wish do you give 
to things for another reason than that you like them, or 
that they benefit you? Do you find yourself shutting 
your eyes to some suffering link in the human chain by 
which your comforts are passed along to you, through 
fear that your comforts would be lessened if you took 
account of that distant human agony? Do you ever 
condone wrong-doing, because to denounce 1t would 
expose you to sacrifice? Are you bearing anybody’s 
burdens? And if not, why not? Is it because you do 
not believe that Jesus did so? Or because you are not 
ready to make Jesus’ life yours? And what contribution 
are you then making to the Christianity of the Church? 

Again, do not hear censoriousness in these questions. 
I know I am speaking to women and men who are lead- 
ing the life of Christ, and are longing to follow closer in 
his steps. And just that simple thing is the need of all 
the world. 

These honest searchings lead one soon out of one’s 
own life into the community. I push, you say, because 
I must—everybody pushes—I shall be crushed and 
trampled if I do not shoulder my way through—Ah! 
then you see the programme widens, grows more auda- 
cious. Is rivalry the principle of our social life, and does 
the common rivalry make my life so hateful and selfish? 


13 


Then some other principle must be put in the place of 
rivalry—then love must somehow supplant competition 
as the driving power of men. Or does the push and 
scramble suggest Jesus Christ, and does God live by pull- 
ing down rivals? Or are we to abandon the Gospel, and 
live by greed? 

There are some businesses that thrive by tempting 
and some that thrive by over-reaching. Is the church, 
then, to let these wrongs alone? Do you know how 
cruelly some men and groups of men in commerce and 
in politics crush their opponents, and how scandalously 
they buy their way? And has the church no word for 
this? Do not blame me for referring to affairs I do not 
understand. You understand them; there are those here 
who are men of affairs, and you know whether the spirit 
of Christ presides over affairs. And if not, are you going 
to be dumb and still claim to be Christian? 

Do you see how tyrannically labor unions sometimes 
dictate to their members—leaving them no choice be- 
tween exorbitant demands and starvation? Will you 
maintain the freedom of manhood, vindicated by Jesus, 
and still keep patient sympathy with men whom years 
of wrong have hammered into relentlessness? For is 
not that the loving justice of God our Father? 

Do you know whether most public servants are 
high-minded, and regard their office as a sacred duty? 
And do you care? And will you take on burdens, and 
show that you care? And if not, why not? How will 
you pray, in honesty, for the reign of God among men? 

Do you consider how cramped the lives of the 
world’s rough workers are, how joyless—with how few 
relieving and re-creating influences of uplifting power? 
The church must learn the lesson of sympathy and zeal 
for betterment of social conditions. Social Settlements 
are pointing the way. We must sympathize without 
criticizing too much, be prepared for ingratitude, work 
not for gratitude, but for amelioration—forget ourselves 
in bringing the life of Christ to men. Whatever makes 


14 


the church a supply for any human need is a bond 
between God and men. Persuade men that the church 
really cares—as Jesus cared—and they will begin to face 
the church expectantly, and get a glimmer, through its 
windows, of the hope of God. 

Will you side with the family and seek to consecrate 
it? Will you make law good and teach respect for it? 
Will you reform amusements, trying to make them clean? 
Will you fight rampant and cruel sin, till it is conquered? 
There is a martial note in Christ’s religion. It is no mild 
and helpless thing. There are heights to be scaled. 
There are intrenched evils to be subdued and destroyed. 

We can thus even see how love is brought to the 
use of force. God showed himself simply as strong, 
when men could understand strength better than any- 
thing more delicate, and yielded only to superior force. 
And, now, and always, force is legitimate to keep selfish- 
ness from thwarting love. Policemen attest the ungod- 
likeness of the world, but the police serve the divine 
benevolence—for evil that will not yield must be 
restrained, for the sake of all. Good people dream of 
universal peace, but there will yet be armies needed to 
establish peace. For the thoughts of men are not all 
thoughts of peace, and some must fight, that the turbu- 
lent do not destroy the peace of the world, or the oppres- 
sor destroy the peaceable liberties of men. If you see a 
scoundrel attack a woman, you will strike him down, if 
you have manhood in you, and do God service. But 
nations, or men, who fight for simple greed, deny their 
Lord. 

I illustrate only. No one can describe in full. - For 
the essence of the thing is that the life of God in men 
moves by its own laws—works itself out. We want a 
church full of the living God—not tying itself by rules, 
but making way for the freedom and the efficiency of 
love—composed of men moved by the inward spirit, free 
to live and free to suffer and to die—like Jesus, for the 
life of the world.’ 


15 


Above all things, you must pass on the spirit of 
Jesus, which inspires you, to the people you teach. Help 
him to live in them. This is the path to the redeemed 
world. This means missionaries and all the engines of 
rescue. It means the forgiveness of sins. It means 
creating heavenly ideals, and getting them realized on 
earth. It means convincing men that to be Christian is 
not to escape a future hell, or even to be relieved of 
stress and pain of mind, but to be like Jesus Christ, 
sharing his stress and pain, to save the world to him. 
When all men are like Jesus Christ, the work will be 
done. 

This is the way to re-dedicate the Church to Ged. 
Make it an expression of thankful joy in his service, and 
a means for entering the fellowship of his redemptive 
work. No other dedication of it, without this, is worth 
the paper your calendar is printed on. We can make 
this a real offering to God, only when we, in very truth, 
offer ourselves with it. 

Men and women—this is a good day to observe be- 
cause it is such a serious day. It is, no doubt, a time 
for thankfulness, but it is not a time for cheap congratu- 
lation or smug, self-satisfied retrospect. You are glad 
you have this church and are going to live in it still 
longer. Do your present purposes give you the right to 
be glad? The Lord has led you hitherto, but unto what? 
For what? Not that you sit down to enjoy your ease. 
Not that you feel superior to any church neighbors. Not 
that you rest back on your cushions and watch God save 
his world. If that were the end of it, you might better 
pull down the church to-morrow, and build its stones 
into a warehouse, or let the river’s current bear its tim- 
bers off. It would be better to meet under the open sky, 
and shiver in the biting winds, as devoted ones have met 
before now, to have the Unseen gripping your lives and 
moulding them—to have your torch really lighted from 
above—to feel your fingers holding the gift of life, that 
you might securely pass it on. 


16 


I pray that you, as a church, may learn the lesson 
of God in Jesus Christ. I pray that the enthusiasm for 
people may possess you, showing itself as the practical 
side of enthusiasm for God. I pray that the mind may 
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. 

You are a light in the world. Let the light burn 
clear. You have the word of life to offer—it can be fully 
offered only by living it. Make this church a joy anda 
renovating power by giving Christ his way in it. Think 
what it will mean in the city, if you understand his 
terms of life, and live accordingly. It rests with you to 
convince men that there is something real, and tremen- 
dous, and splendid in God. 

Let this be a spot where God is taken in earnest, 
where the simplicity of obedience has command, and the 
passion of loyalty. Christ will revolutionize the world 
before he gets through—help him to revolutionize this 
city. Have great brotherhood with all who are work- 
ing toward this end. Gather here to make report to him, 
and take orders from him—each assigned to his task. 
Make the life of Jesus Christ your real business. Carry 
it from this place into any other business you may have. 
Believe in Jesus. Believe in God. Let him work his 
will in you and by you. Let him find here one corner 
where his kingdom can come, and his will be done, on 
earth, as it is in heaven. 


17 


THE 
BEGINNINGS OF PRESBYTERIANISM 
IN ALBANY 
by 


VICTOR HUGO PALTSITS 
State Historian 


There are those who idly pluck the luscious fruit but 
never think of the roots from whence the sap 
has sprung. To trace the beginnings of Presbyterianism 
in Albany, we must go back some decades to that 
radical pietistic movement in Connecticut known as the 
“Great Awakening” of 1740-1741, which produced radical 
diversities of view as to methods of Christian evangeliza- 
tion in many members of the New England Congrega- 
tional Church. The operation of the Saybrook platform 
of church government favored an increase of sympathy 
of the Connecticut churches for the Presbyterians of 
the Middle Provinces, and diminished their sympathy 
with their conservative brethren of Massachusetts. 
There was a widespread fear of the establishment of 
Episcopacy in the colonies and the erection of an English 
bishopric. Just before the revolutionary war this feeling 
of fear and sympathy led to co-operant meetings between 
the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia 
and the Associations of Connecticut. The main object 
of these efforts was to resist encroachments from the 
Established English church and to promote evangeliza- 
tion in the newer settlements. This body met annually 
from 1766 to 1775.1 

A schism in in the American Presbyterian church 
caused a division from 1741 to 1758, affected indirectly 
by the “Great Awakening’ of New England, with which 
William Tennent and his group of followers were 


Walker. Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 514, 525, 526. See 
also Smucker. The Great Awakening, in Proc. of American Antiquarian Society, 
1874. 


18 


severely afflicted. In those days men were known as 
“New Side” and “Old Side’ Presbyterians. After con- 
siderable effort a reunion was brought about in 1758. 
On this basis the reunited church entered upon a new 
period of activity. The stricter view of Presbyterianism 
had prevailed over the looser in matters of church order. 
The newer view had prevailed over the older in that of 
the perspective of doctrine and its practical applica- 
tion.”2 The plan of union consummated on May 22, 
1758, brought together the Presbyterian Synods of New 
York and Philadelphia. In 1759 its strength was greater 
than that of all the other Christian denominations com- 
bined, in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The 
Dutch Reformed Church stood second, and mostly held 
the Presbyterian type of polity.” 

The Synod of New York and Philadelphia operated 
southward, westward and northward—in New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the 
Carolinas. The materials for the beginnings of Pres- 
byterianism are scant for the region lying north of New 
York City and between the Hudson and the New 
England border. But investigation in this region is 
important in this inquiry, because Albanian Presby- 
terians were early affiliated with the Dutchess County 
Presbytery. The Presbyterianism of Dutchess and Put- 
nam Counties has been traced to a Milford, Connecticut, 
origin. The Milford separatists were “New Side” 
seceders from Congregationalism in 1741. It is believed 
that some of them came over into New York, about 1742, 
to the present Putnam County. Their first pastor was 
Rey. Elisha Kent, a graduate of Yale College, and grand- 
father of the eminent Chancellor Kent of New York. 
These early seceders, while leaning toward Presbyterian- 
ism, had no connection with a presbytery, but were vir- 
tually independents. Within a few years after the 
"Thompson. History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States, 
pp. 34-44. 


2Briggs. American Presbyterianism, pp. 316-317. 
8Briggs. p. 330. 


19 


“Great Awakening” over thirty of these separatist 
churches were organized in Connecticut, and others 
were formed in Western Massachusetts and Vermont. 
What more natural than that they should push west- 
ward over their boundaries? On October 27, 1762, three 
ministers, Elisha Kent of the First church of Philips 
precinct, Joseph Peck of the second church, and Solomon 
Mead of South Salem, consulted about forming a pres- 
bytery, “which they did by prayer, and the adoption of 
the Confession of Faith, and Larger and Shorter Cate- 
chisms, and applied to the Synod of New York and 
Philadelphia to be received.” Their request was granted, 
and the Synod added to their. number John Smith and 
Chauncey Graham from the New York Presbytery, and 
Samuel Sacket and Eliphalet Ball of the Suffolk Pres- 
bytery. They were named, on May 23, 1763, the 
Dutchess County Presbytery, and on June 28 of that 
year held their first meeting, when they adopted the 
Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, and 
engaged “to observe the Directory for worship and 
government.” 

During the last French and Indian war many New 
Englanders attached to provincial regiments passed 
through Albany to join expeditions to the westward, 
along Lake George and Lake Champlain, or to partici- 
pate in the campaigns against Quebec and Montreal. The 
familiarity gained in this way of the place, reinforced by 
the growing Wanderlust and theological difficulties—all 
favored emigration westward. Quebec and Montreal 
were captured. Preparations for peace were In the air. 
“In 1760, North of Ireland and Scotch people, who were 
engaged in mercantile trade, came to Albany in goodly 
numbers. This fact secured the attention of Scottish 
people generally toward the section of country adjacent 


4 Early Presbyteriantsm on the East Line of the Hudson. Letter of Rev. John John- 
sion, D. D., in American Presby. Review, 1868; Gillett. Astory of Presby. Church 
in U. S., vol.1, pp. 145-147 ; Briggs, p. 330. 


20 


to Albany.’* In 1758 there were ninety-four ministers 
of the Presbyterian church in the original colonies of 
the Atlantic seaboard, of whom forty had come either 
from Ireland or Scotland. Just as the denomination was 
indebted to Ireland and Scotland for its clergy, it owed 
its increasing strength in membership.2. The two 
elements of which we have spoken—New Englanders 
and Scotch-Irish—began to fuse in Albany. The lan- 
guage of the Reformed Dutch Church they could not 
understand; the Lutherans afforded even less of oppor- 
tunity to them for church affiliation. Presbyterianism, 
in other places, was combining divergent national types 
—as English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, German, 
French and Swiss.° 

On May 26, 1760, the Synod of New York and Phila- 
delphia, having received “a very pressing application” 
for supplies from “the English Presbyterian gentlemen 
of Albany,” appointed Hector Alison of Drawyers, 
Delaware, “to supply there till the second Sabbath of 
July, if it suits his conveniency,” and Abraham Kettletas, 
then on the verge of resigning his charge at Elizabeth- 
town, N. J., to supply there four Sabbaths, beginning 
with the fourth Sunday of July. Synod provided, more- 
over, that William Tennent should “supply them after- 
wards, as he can conveniently.”* This William Ten- 
nent, the younger, was the well-known patriot pastor at 
Freehold, N. J., in the American Revolution. 

The next steps to formation were organization, the 
call of a minister and the erection of a house of worship. 
Application was made repeatedly to Synod to secure aid. 
“Their case was recommended to the attention and 
charity of friends of the cause.”®> Through great 
embarrassments success was attained. Sometime in 
1762, William Hanna was called to be their first regular 


+McClure. History of the Presby. Church at New Scotland, N. ¥., p. 10. 
2Craighead. Scotch and Irish Seeds in American Soil, pp. 297-298. 
3Briggs, p. 343. 

4 Records of the Presby. Church, 1706-1788, p. 302; Gillett, vol. 1, p. 386. 
5Gillett, vol. 1, p. 154; Presbyterian Magazine, 1851, pp. 129-131. 


Bl 


pastor, and during his pastorate the first house of 
worship was erected. Mr. Hanna was an educated man. 
He had studied Greek and Latin and taught the latter at 
the Rev. Samuel Finley’s academy at Nottingham, 
Maryland; he had assisted the Rev. Dr. Robert Smith 
for more than a year at his school in Pequea, Pennsyl- 
vania, as a tutor of Greek and Latin, and then entered 
the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, where he “had 
passed one Examination for a Degree with the Approba- 
tion of the Trustees & would have been admitted to the 
Honours of the College had he attended at the Com- 
mencement last” [i. e. 1758]. In 1759, he received his 
degree of A. B. from Kings College (now Columbia 
University). From that institution he also received the 
honorary degree of M. A. in 1765, and the same degree 
was conferred on him by Yale College in 1768. Hanna 
was, in 1760, a communicant of the church at Salisbury, 
Connecticut, of which Jonathan Lee was then pastor 
On May 28, 1760, the Litchfield County Association 
after due examination, gave Hanna a license “to Preach 
the Gospel Under the Conduct & Direction” of that min- 
isterial association, of which Hanna’s pastor was the 
“Scribe” or secretary. It appears that Hanna was for- 
mally ordained by a Council of the Connecticut min- 
isters, in 1761, in spite of protests from Rev. Dr. Bellamy 
who from the first had an unfavorable opinion of him. 
The next year, as already mentioned, he took up his 
pastoral labors in Albany; and on October 18, 1763, he 
was received into the Dutchess County Presbytery. 
During his ministry of the Albany flock he sustained “an 
unblemished Moral & Religious Character.” On Feb- 
ruary 14, 1767, Sir William Johnson wrote to Governor 
Henry Moore, of New York, as follows: “Mr. Hanna, 
the Dissenting Clergyman at Albany has informed me 
that as sev.! of his Congregation, are removed and 
about to remove to other places which must reduce his 
stipend he is therefore desirous to apply himself to the 
practise of the Law to which end he has earnestly sol- 


ae 


licitted for my recommendat® to your Excelley that he 
may be admitted. I therefore take the Liberty of laying 
his request before y? Excell.cy”’ On May 29, 1767, 
Hanna wrote to Johnson and thanked him for his “many 
Favours,” and “particularly your last Letter to the Gov- 
ernor in my Favour which was of Singular Service to 
me.’ This letter Hanna wrote from Schenectady, and 
he added: “Since my return from your House, I have 
attended close to Mr. [Peter] Silvesters Office, to 
acquaint myself with the Formalities & proceedings of 
the Court; have got my Licence, & qualified last Tues- 
day [May 26]: am come to Schenectady, with a Design 
to settle; & should be glad to have it in my Power to 
serve you or any of your Friends.” Hanna’s assumption 
of legal duties collided with his ministerial status, and a 
committee of the Presbyterian Church of Albany, on 
July 9, 1767, requested the Dutchess County Presbytery 
to grant “a Dismission from the Reverend Mr. William 
Hanna which We are the Moore Incouraged to hope for, 
as he has promised unanimously to concur with us in the 
same Request.”! It is from this petition to Presbytery 
that we learn “that the Revd William Hanna was 
regularly appointed to the Pastoral Care of this flock: 
that he performed the Ministerial Functions for the 
Space of about five years amongst us.” Released from 
pastoral cares, Hanna now practised law at Schenectady. 
Apparently, he soon tired of the law, for, in the spring of 
1771, he expressed to Johnson “an ardent desire to take 
Orders in the Church of England and become a Mission- 
ary.” Johnson recommended him to Rev. Dr. Samuel 
Auchmuty, who advised, as an alternative, that Hanna 
be recommended to Lord Baltimore, because of the oppo- 
sition around Albany that had arisen against Hanna 
“from his old Friends the Dissenters.” Auchmuty also 
wrote: “His moral character formerly was very good; 
but since he has commenced Lawyer it is altered.” Per- 


1This was signed by Elders “John McCrea, John Munro, Robt. Henry.” 


23 


haps there was more of rumor than of fact in this charge. 
In a letter to Johnson, of May 8, 1771, Hanna complains 
that “‘altho’ the Presbyterians were loud in my Praise 
when I officiated as a Clergiman amongst them, yet I 
could find that immediately on my leaving them they 
were as loud in Slander.” Johnson gave Hanna a “re- 
commendatory Letter” to Governor Horatio Sharpe, of 
Maryland, who received him hospitably. Sharpe gave 
him friendly letters to Virginia, to Lord Fairfax, George 
Washington and others, and he readily got a vacant 
parish. In 1772, Hanna was in London, where he 
received from the Bishop of London deacon’s and priest’s 
orders in June. Upon his return to America, we find 
him in Maryland hunting for a parish.* 

The first house of worship of the Albany Presby- 
terians was built on what was known as “gallows hill,” 
on a plot bounded on the east by William Street, on the 
north by Beaver Street, on the west by Grand Street, 
and on the south by Hudson Avenue. Its size was con- 
venient and it fronted to the east. It had a tall steeple, 
and it cost about £2813 York currency. But in 1770 
there was yet unpaid of this sum £2001, 18s., 6d., to be 
paid by three persons, and of which Elder Robert Henry 
had advanced out of his own pocket £1086, 13s, 6d. The 
original trustees of 1763 are given as John Macomb, 
David Edgar, Samuel Holladay, Robert Henry, Abraham 
Lyle, and John Monro; and the elders, Robert Henry, 
David Edgar, and Matthew Watson.? 

For some two years after the removal of Mr. Hanna 
the church here was without a regular pastor, but the 
Synod provided occasional supplies. In 1768, Andrew 
Bay, “a broad Scotchman,”* but judged to be a “a highly 
talented and eloquent preacher,” made a preaching tour 


1M SS. of Sir William Johnson, vol. 14, pp. 48, 195; vol. 20, pp. 192, 194, 207, 209, 
217, 236; vol. 21, pp. 20, 21, 225; vol. 22, p. 146. Printed in partin Doc. Hist. of N. ¥., 
vol. 4 (quarto edition), pp. 236, 278, 279, 281, 296, 307. Cf. also Gillett, vol. 1, pp. 
151, 154, 379, 386-388. 

2 Presby. Magazine, 1851, p.130; Blayney, History of First Presbyterian Church 
of Albany (1877), p. 51; Records of Presby. Church, vol. 1, p. 410. 

8In Doc. Hist. of N. Y., vol. 4 (quarto edition), p. 241, the editor says he was 
“‘a native of Ireland.’”? The above quotation is from Gillett, vol. 1, pp. 386, 387. 


24 


of six Sabbaths, by appointment of Synod, among the 
Scotch settlements in the vicinity of Albany and in what 
is now Washington and Montgomery Counties. His 
services attracted the attention of the pastorless Albany 
flock. On May 17, 1769, Mr. Bay was in attendance at 
Synod in Philadelphia, as a member of the Newcastle 
Presbytery. By this Presbytery he had been ordained in 
1748, and he had now been over twenty years associated 
with the Presbyterian church in America. It must have 
been immediately after his attendance at Synod, in 1769, 
that he accepted a call from the Albany congregation. 
He is found again in Philadelphia at the Synod in May, 
1770, when the Dutchess County Presbytery was ordered 
to “call upon Mr. Bay, now residing within their bounds, 
to produce a regular dismission from New Castle Pres- 
bytery, and to join their Presbytery.” Elder Robert 
Henry had accompanied the pastor to Philadelphia, in 
order to lay before the Synod the distressed state of the 
church’s finances and indebtedness for its house of wor- 
ship. The Synod “cheerfully and cordially” recom- 
mended them “to the assistance of all well disposed 
charitable persons within their bounds.”1 Mr. Bay 
labored in Albany for about five years, or until 1774, 
when he took a pastorate at Newtown, Long Island, 
under the jurisdiction of the New York Presbytery. His 
stay at Newtown was short. His pastoral relations there 
were dissolved by a judgment handed down by the New 
York Presbytery, June 20, 1775, from which he appealed 
to the Synod, which upheld the Presbytery by its order 
of May 27, 1776. He was much displeased. The 
Synod’s records state: “Mr. Bay, in a solemn manner, 
declared his declining the jurisdiction of this Synod for 
the future, and against having any further connection 
with it.’ 

From 1774 to 1785, the Presbyterians of Albany 
were without a regular pastor, but were cared for by 


1 Records of Presby. Church, vol. 1, p. 410. 
2Tbid. pp. 475-476. 


25 


supplies from time to time. In the records of the Synod 
of New York and Philadelphia, we find this minute 
under May 22, 1775, viz.: 

“A supplication from the Presbyterian Congregation 
in Albany, praying for supplies, and that some members 
of the Synod may be sent to visit the country to the 
northward of the city, and that their congregation may 
be taken from under the care of the Presbytery of 
Dutchess and put under the care of the Presbytery of 
New York, was brought in and read; the said congrega- 
tion, agreeable to their request, are put under the care of 
the Presbytery of New York.’ 

The first volume of the records of the Presbytery of 
New York begins with the year 1775, as the first 138 pp. 
are, unfortunately, torn out. On p. 140, we find the con- 
firmation of the transfer of the Albany church from the 
Dutchess County Presbytery to the Presbytery of New 
York.2 This entry, although undated, was made shortly 
before June 20, 1775, and we learn that Mr. Miller was 
selected to supply at Albany “four Sabs before our stated 
fall Presby— And Mr. Treat two Sabb’ before that 
time.” Mr. King was chosen to supply the whole month 
of September, 17762 He must have pleased the 
Albanians, because the minutes of the Presbytery, of 
October 8, 1776, show the presentation of “a petition 
from the Presby. Congregation in the City of Albany for 
supplies and particularly for Mr. King.”* In 1777, Mr. 
Eckley received appointments for “four Sabbaths 
between this and our next stated Presby. and as many 
more as he can. Mr. King all the month of April— Mr. 
Dodd the month of Feb. and Mr. Joline the month of 
March.”® Dr. Rodgers was desired “to supply the 


1 Records of Presby. Church, vol. 1, p. 471. 

2MS. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, vol. 1, p. 140. The original 
records are now under the jurisdiction of the Presbytery of Newark, N.J., and I 
am indebted for extracts to the kindness of Rev. Julius H. Wolff, the Stated 
Clerk of that body. 

37bid, vol. 1 (May 7, 1776), p. 160. 

4Jbid, p. 164. 

SJbid, pp. 165-166. 


26 


Church at Albany, one month or more this summer 
[1777], if he can possibly spare so much time from more 
important labours.” At the same time Mr. Joline was 
appointed “to supply one month at Albany—and the 
remainder at discretion till the fall Presby.”! We find 
no further supplies during the war period, but that does 
not necessarily presage that no services were held. 

On the morning of September 2, 1775, there 
assembled at the Presbyterian church on “gallows hill” 
a joint conference of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs 
for the Northern Department, the Committee of the 
City and County of Albany and Indian delegations of 
the Six Nations, and then and there the Committee, 
which was a committee of safety at the outbreak of the 
American Revolution, answered the Indians in the usual 
harangue that preceded an Indian treaty. This was 
one of the meetings by means of which the Continental 
Congress sought to win over as allies the Indian tribes 
for the impending conflict. The war was on. The part 
played by the Presbyterian element, from New York to 
Georgia, in that struggle, is conspicuous in the annals of 
the American Revolution.* Seventy pounds of lead 
were taken out of the Albany Presbyterian Church, 
stripped no doubt from steeple and window frames, to 
be made into bullets for the patriot firearms. When 
this first church was being restored, in 1786, we learn 
that an effort was being made to get back either the 
weight of lead or its value in money. It appears that the 
lead had been purchased by Dr. Samuel Stringer for the 
army, but had never been paid for. Stringer was one of 
the Commissioners for detecting and defeating Con- 
Spiracies in the State of New York, and held other 
places of high trust in the struggle for independence. I 
have discovered yet another incident of more than ordi- 
nary interest. A memorial was presented by John Price 


4MS. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, May 6, 1777, pp. 169, 170. 

2MS. Minutes of Com. of City and County of Albany, vol.1, p. 259; New York 
Colonial Docs., vol. 8, p. 627. 

8Breed. Presbyteritanism and the Revolution, Phila., [1876]; Briggs, pp. 347-352. 


27 


and John M. Beeckman to the legislature of New York, 
on behalf of themselves and other citizens who were 
members of the Committee of the City and County of 
Albany. It recited that the Albany committee had bor- 
rowed from the Presbyterian Church of Albany “a large 
iron stove, with the necessary pipes, grate and support- 
ers . . . for the use of the convention of the repre- 
sentatives of the state, and which was destroyed in the 
conflagration of Kingston.” Now, it is interesting to 
note that, in days when stoves were a luxury, the Pres- 
byterian stove of the Albany congregation was loaned 
for service in Kingston, to keep warm the ardor of the 
band of patriots who framed the first constitution of 
the state of New York. And it is not unworthy to 
remark that, when Kingston was sacked in 1777, this 
stove, warmer of patriotic servants, was itself destroyed 
by the fervent heat of a British conflagration. The 
memorial asked the legislature to replace the loss to the 
church. The Senate had been willing, but the Assembly, 
on February 10, 1781, referred the matter to a committee 
and later non-concurred.* 

The Presbytery of New York, on October 21, 1783, 
appointed Mr. King to supply three Sabbaths at Albany 
and Schenectady “at his discretion.”? At the meeting 
of May 4, 1784, discretionary appointments for Albany 
and Schenectady were as follows: Mr. Close and Mr. 
King, two Sabbaths each, and Mr. Armstrong, “who has 
been preaching for some time within our bounds to 
supply the places aforesaid, as much as he conveniently 
can between this and our next meeting of Presbytery.”? 
On October 19, 1784, Mr. Burton was appointed “to 
spend three or four months at Albany, White Creek and 
the Country round as he shall think proper.’ 

2Journal of the Assembly of New York, 1781. Albany: Reprinted by J. Buel, 
1820, pp. 18, 58-59; MS. Minutes of Com. of City and County of Albany, Oct. 9, 1776, 
where origin of loan is shown. 

2MS. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, vol. 2, p. 52. 


SJbzd, p. 60. 
4Jbid, p. 69. 


28 


After the war, the American Presbyterian Church 
took on new life and expanded itself from New York to 
Georgia. The many ministers could no longer meet 
together in an annual Synod, and a system was devised 
of representation. In 1788, the General Assembly was 
organized, composed of four Synods, sixteen Pres- 
byteries, having 177 ministers, 111 probationers, and 419 
churches.* . 

The legislature of New York, on April 6, 1784, 
passed an enabling act pertaining to the appointment of 
trustees by all religious denominations, who were to be 
the responsible body corporate in each of the respective 
congregations. Pursuant to the provisions of this act, 
“The Corporation of the Presbyterian Church in the 
City of Albany,” on October 3, 1785, elected as trustees 
Robert Henry, Mathew Watson, John W. Wendell, 
Robert McClellan, Hunlock Woodruff, Daniel McIntire, 
James Boyd, John Robison and Theodorus Van Wyck 
Graham.” At a meeting of the corporation, held a few 
days later (October 7), Peter Sharp was chosen treas- 
urer and Joseph Caldwell was named Clerk to the board 
of trustees for a year’s term. At this first meeting of the 
revived Presbyterian body of Albany, Robert Henry 
acted as moderator.® 

On August 10, 1785, the Presbytery of New York 
received two calls for the Rev. John McDonald as pastor 
—one from the English Presbyterians in Albany, and the 
other from a Presbyterian body at New Perth, Washing- 
ton County. Rev. Dr. Rodgers was authorized to trans- 
mit these calls to Mr. McDonald for his consideration, 
and to answer the letters of the two congregations, in- 
forming them of the action of Presbytery in the matter. 
As Presbytery anticipated the acceptance of one of these 
calls, they appointed Mr. McDonald to prepare a sermon 
from Rom. 8:1 and an exegesis on the question “Nunquid 
discriminis sit inter communum et specialem gratiam?”’, 


1Briggs, pp. 362, ff. 
2M S. Clerk’s Book, in the possession of the First Presbyterian Church. 
3847S. Clerk's Book. 


29 


both to be delivered at the next Presbytery. At the 
meeting of October 18, Dr. Rodgers reported his fulfil- 
ment of his duties. The Hon. John Williams appeared 
in behalf of the New Perth congregation, and John W. 
Wendell and James Boyd were present as commissioners 
from Albany, “who gave the Presbytery every informa- 
tion they required about their respective Churches & 
Congregations. The Presbytery then called upon Mr: 
McDonald to know if he had considered these calls & was 
ready to give an answer. Mr. McDonald replied he had 
frequently & seriously considered them, & had come to a 
fixed resolution of accepting the call from Albany, & 
with the leave of the Presbytery, accordingly did accept 
of it. Upon which the commissioners from Albany 
requested that Presbytery would proceed to ordain Mr. 
McDonald with all convenient speed & that if possible, 
the ordination be in Albany. The Presbytery proceeded 
to consider Mr. McDonald’s sermon preached at the 
opening of Presbytery from the text assigned him at last 
meeting, & also his exegesis were delivered, & accepted 
them as parts of his trial—Having proceeded to examine 
him on his experimental acquaintance with religion & 
views in entering into the work of the Gospel ministry, 
were unanimously satisfied.”2 Two days later, on 
October 20, the Presbytery “proceeded to examine Mr. 
McDonald upon Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Geography, 
Logic, Rhetoric, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Moral 
Philosophy, Church History, Systematic & Casuistic 
Divinity & Church Government, his answers in all which 
were sustained & accepted as parts of trial. Mr. 
McDonald adopted the Westminster confession of Faith 
as the confession of his faith, & declared his approbation 
of the Directory for Presbyterial church government, 
worship & discipline. The Presbytery after considering 
the request of the commissioners that Mr. McDonald 
should be ordained with all convenient speed, & also that 


41MS. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, vol. 2, p. 93. 
3M S. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, vol. 2, pp. 97. ff. 


30 


it may greatly subserve the interest of the Redeemers 
Kingdom in that part of the world that he be ordained 
in Albany, agreed to appoint & accordingly appointed 
him to be ordained in the church of Albany upon the 8th 
day of November at 10 Oclock A. M. Mr. Close to 
preach the ordination sermon, Mr. Ker to preside & 
Mr. Chapman to give the charge to the people.”* 

The acceptance of Mr. McDonald and report of the 
proceedings of Presbytery were communicated by Mr. 
Wendell at a meeting of the trustees of the corporation, 
held on November 1, 1785. The trustees forthwith made 
provision for a “Public Dinner” to be given to the three 
clergymen whom Presbytery had selected to participate 
in Mr. McDonald’s ordination, and also arranged for the 
payment of “all Necessary expences of those Gentle- 
men.”? 

On November 8, the Presbytery met at Albany 
“according to adjournment P. P. S.” There were present, 
“The Moderator, Mr. Close, Mr. Chapman, Mr. Miller, 
Mr. King, & Mr. Wilson, Ministers—Mr. Schenck, a 
member of the first Presby. of Philadelphia being present 
was asked & sat as a correspondent—Mr. Ker being 
necessarily absent by sickness, the Presby. requested Mr. 
Miller to preside in his room—Mr. Close preached the 
ordination sermon from I Tim. 5, 17, after which the 
Presby. proceeded to the ordination of Mr. McDonald by 
fasting, prayer & the laying on of the hands of the Pres- 
bytery, giving him also the right hand of fellowship, & 
installed him pastor of the Presbyterian church in 
Albany. Mr. Chapman gave the charge to the people. 
Mr. McDonald then took his seat as a member of the 
Presbytery.® 

The church was now prepared to enter upon its new 
career. The pews of the church were, on November 10th 


4MS. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, vol. 2, pp. 97, ff. 

2MS. Clerk's Book, of the trustees. 

3MS. Minutes of the Presbytery of New York, vol. 2, pp. 103, ff. It has been 
thought best to give the minutes with as little curtailment as possible, even at 
the expense of verbosity, and with a realization that they are far removed from 
a literary structure. 


31 


ordered to be numbered at once, and on the 14th it was 
resolved to “proceed to the Renting of the Pews on 
Thursday the fifteenth day of December to Such Persons 
as are on the Subscription list for the Support of the 
Minister.” Should two or more persons select the same 
seat, choice was to be determined by ballot, and in case 
of non-payment, after demand, rights were to be for- 
feited. This system of selection was rescinded on 
December 15, and the pews were disposed of by public 
vendue on that day. There were sixty-four pews, and 
the Clerk’s manuscript record-book gives the names of 
the original purchasers. The “first Seat on the Right 
hand going in the chief Door of the Church” was “Appro- 
priated to the Use of the Corporation of this City” (seat 
No. 12), and the seat opposite (No. 13) to the Governor 
of the State. The pew next to the pulpit on the right 
(No. 24) was reserved for the Minister, and on the left 
for the elders and deacons.? 


On November 23, 1785, the corporation, at a meeting 
held ‘fat Mr. Denniston’s Tavern,” appointed a commit- 
tee “to prepare a Subscription list, and to tender it to 
Such Gentlemen of the Town, as they conceive Proper, 
who are not members of this Church.” The clerk was 
authorized “to take three Shillings for making Publica- 
tion of Marriage, and Sixpence for every Persons 
Christoned.” The price set for “Burying a Person under 
the Church” was “Three Pounds for an Adult, and thirty 
Shillings for a Person under fourteen years.” At this 
meeting John Bull (not the original English John Bull) 
was chosen clerk for one year, at five pounds per annum, 
to be paid quarterly. Mr. Bull was also given pew num- 
ber thirty-one, gratis, for the year, but he was dismissed 
from his office on January 11, following. They next 
engaged Gregory Grant as sexton “during the Winter 
Season,” at three shillings per Sabbath. His duties were 
prescribed as follows: 


IMS. Clerk’s Book, of the trustees. 


32 


“1 See that the Doors and Window Shutters of the 
Church are Seasonably opened. 

“2 See that the fires be made in the Stoves, in the 
Season thereof, and the Snow Cleared to the doors of the 
Church. 

“3 See that the Stoves be Removed the first day of 
may and Return them, the first day of November. 

“4 See that Children and Servants behave with 
Decorum during Service. 

“5 Endeavour upon approach of Strangers, to con- 
duct them to Seats. Attend Funerals in the Congrega- 
tion for which a Perquisite of [blank] be taken by him. 

“6 Keep the Corporation Seat for them, and Such 
Persons as they introduce. [No seventh rule.] 8tbly 
Close the Church.” 

Other resolutions passed at this meeting were: 

“Resolved that the Sex[t]on apply Occationally to 
the Treasurer for money, for purchaseing wood for the 
Stoves, for the Sawing thereof, and the Treasurer is 
hereby directed to pay the Same. 

“Resolved, that the Side doors of the Church be 
kept Shut untill Servise is done, in the fore and After- 
noon, in order to keep the Church warm during the 
Winter Season.”? 

The Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, was given 
the choice of a pew. He chose number four, which was 
“accordingly assigned for his use, he having the Liberty 
to make what Improvements on the said Pew he 
chuses.”? 

The trustees claimed that they were the sole dis- 
pensers of the monies belonging to and collected in the 
church, under the legislative act relative to religious 
corporations. This was, of course, their indisputable 
right, but the vote on the question was not unanimous 
among their own number, and the Session also dissented. 
The trustees proposed as a compromise that the elders 


41M S. Clerk's Book. 
2Jbid, Dec. 7, 1785. 


and deacons take up the collections in the church and 
deposit them in the treasury of the corporation, but the 
Session “could not agree With the Proposals of the 
Trustees.”? 

Rev. Mr. McDonald, the pastor, at the request of 
the Session, on April 5, 1786, laid before the trustees a 
proposition for erecting a school under the direction of 
the church. After deliberation, the trustees recommended 
delay, because they had been informed officially that 
the city “was pushing a Subscription for the erecting an 
Academy.” 

In June, 1786, arrangements were begun for repairs 
to the church edifice. Trustees Henry and Watson were 
constituted a committee to wait upon Philip Van Rens- 
selaer” to enquire respecting the Lead taken out of the 
Church for the use of the Army & to demand a return of 
the same.” They conferred with Van Rensselaer, who 
promised to apply to the governor in the matter. They 
also made inquiry of John Fulsom, a pewholder, whether 
he would be willing to “warn to Funerals, walk before 
the Corps and to have the Perquisits allowed for the 
Same.” He accepted the office, at an honorarium of 
twelve shillings. The charges for use of bier and 
funeral cloth were fixed at six shillings for grown persons 
and two shillings for children. The sexton was allowed 
six shillings for digging graves for adults and four shil- 
lings for children. 

The repairs undertaken, in 1786, were quite exten- 
sive and included one hundred panes of glass, painting 
of all sashes, repair of stoves, purchase of a bell, funeral 
bier and cloth, restoring doors, four supporters for the 
steeple, etc. The records show that at this time Robert 
Henry, a trustee, had advanced out of his private posses- 
sions the sum of £3256, 19d., 3 farthings. 

On January 31, 1787, the trustees adopted a church 
seal, “a Dove descending with an Olive Branch in its 
mouth,” inscribed “Presbyterian Church Albany,’ and 


this seal was put in the custody of the clerk of the board. 
IMS. Clerk’s Book, Jan. 27, 1786. 


34 


This seal is yet under the care of the present clerk. It 
is interesting to mention that this metal seal was made 
by Stephen A. Hopkins, not of course a relation of the 
present pastor of this church, who charged £1, 4s. for it. 

The bell, for the steeple, which had been bought in 
1787 from David Ross, a bell-founder in New Jersey, 
was unsatisfactory, and the trustees notified him that he 
“must expect to have it returned on his hands as it is 
not agreeable to his contract.” Accordingly, the bell 
went back to David Ross, but the new casting caused 
likewise “general dissatisfaction in the Congregation” 
and the bell was once more (May, 1789) consigned to 
Mr. Storm, of New York, the church’s agent in the 
transaction. It weighed 690 pounds. In March, 1790, 
they made inquiries about the cost of a bell of 600 
pounds from Doolittle, of New Haven, Connecticut. In 
August, 1791, they informed Doolittle that the bell he 
had furnished was cracked and useless. He agreed to 
recast it, and back it was sent. 

On January 4, 1790, the trustees “Resolved that one 
thousand Coppers be stamped with the impression of 
(Church Penny) to be placed in the hands of the treas- 
urer for the purpose of Exchanging to the congragation 
at the rate of twelve for a Shilling, in order to add 
respect to the weekly collections.” Specimens of this 
impression of the church money now command high 
prices and are diligently sought after for the cabinets of 
numismatists. 

In March, 1790, application was made to the cor- 
poration of the city of Albany for a burying ground. 
The common council, on March 6, granted “five acres of 
Ground comprised in the following Bounderies,” “on 
the North by Princess Street on the East by Duke 
Street on the South by Predeaux Street and on the West 
by the Lot in which a vault has latly been constructed.” 
granting the same to the Dutch, Episcopal, Lutheran 
and Presbyterian churches. The Presbyterian allotment 
was the easternmost, consisting of one and one-sixth 


35 


acres. Title was taken on April 16. In April of the 
following year (1791) members of the congregation set 
to work in leveling the burying ground. 

In the late winter of 1792, negotiations were set on 
foot for the purchase of a new lot for the erection of a 
new house of worship. ‘This lot was on what was 
known as “the plains” on the “east of Washington 
street” (now South Pearl.) In July, 1793, James Blood- 
good was desired to draw up plans for the new church. 
Subscriptions were taken up. In August it was deter- 
mined that “the proposed New brick Church” should be 
sixty-four feet in length and sixty-two feet in breadth, 
exclusive of the steeple. An estimate was asked of Mr. 
Packard, a builder. In December provision was made 
for contracting for 300,000 bricks. A committee on ways 
and means was appointed on January 15, 1794. At the 
end of March, the following advertisement was placed 
in Webster’s Albany newspaper: 

“Proposals for building a brick Presbyterian Church 
in this City, for which a grate part of the meterials are 
already procured, any person wishing to undertake is 
desired to deliver in their terms by the first day of May 
next and by applying to Mr- James Bloodgood may see 
the plan and be informed of the Quant[it]y of meterials 
Already ingaged for the purpose.”* 

On April 4, 1794, Bloodgood reported and produced 
a plan for the new church, which was accepted unani- 
mously. By midsummer the work on the foundations 
was well forward. The trustees planned for raising 
subscriptions for the project and for raising the salary 
of their pastor. On August 18, Mr. McDonald's salary 
was raised from £230 to £300 per annum. Nine mem- 
bers and the pastor by a written instrument of Decem- 
ber 11, 1794, agreed each to loan £200 for the completion 
of the church. The trustees accepted the offer at their 
meeting on January 9, 1795, and arranged for repayment 
out of the pew-rents, after the new structure would be 

+This text is taken from the 47S. Clerk’s Book, of the trustees. 


36 


occupied. At this time, as shown by the sworn deposi- 
tion of the board, the entire annual revenues and income 
of the church amounted to about £1200. 

Through publication of advertisements in the news- 
papers, proposals were solicited for building the church. 
At a meeting of the trustees, February 17, 1795, several 
proposals were opened. All of these bids were incom- 
plete and “further Concideration was defered untill 
more particular information be received.” On March 4, 
according to invitation, Elisha Putnam of Lansingburgh 
met with the trustees and laid before them the following 
proposition, viz: 

“To Compleat the out side of the Meeting hous 
including laying the lower flowrs, that is to rais the 
Walls, Tower, Spire, Doars, Frontises, Window frames, 
Sashes, Glass, Glazing & painting all the wood woork 
with two Coats, except spire with three coats. The 
above work I will ingage to perform finding all the 
meterials for the sum of three thousand and one Hun- 
dred pounds.” Mr. Putnam named two persons as his 
security for carrying out the contract. After some 
alterations had been made in the plans, the trustees 
settled upon the following specifications, on March 17, 
1795, viz: 

“A Description of a Church to be built on the foun- 
dation laid in the third Ward of the City of Albany for 
the Corporation of the Presbyterian Congr[eg]ation by 
Mr. Elisha Putnam. 

“Said Church is to be built of nine inch brick, 
seventy six feet long, and sixty three feet six inches 
broad, the walls to be twenty eight feet high from the 
watter tables to the plates, the lenght [sic] of two brick 
and a half thick to the Galerys and the lenght [sic] of 
two brick thick upwards, with a tower sixty feet high, 
finished with a cornish, & eighteen feet squair three 
lenghts [sic] of a brick thick projecting four feet from 
the boddy of the Church. A stepel to be ninety feet 
high from the top of the tower proportioned in sercum- 


37 


ferance according to the squair of the tower and is to be 
composed of two octagen sections with balls or urns on 
each squair, a semi section and spire with a Copper ball 
two feet six inches in diameter to be well painted and 
gilt with gold leaf with a neet scrole and vain all accor- 
ding to a drauft and skale now in the posession of the 
board of Trustees. 

“The building to have neet double Jet cornish to be 
continued round with a pitched pediment in frunt of the 
tower, the Gabel and cornished singel, and thirty one 
windows containing twenty four lights each eleven by 
fourteen inch glass, One ovel window in frunt of the 
tower and a sounding window with vernicion blindes in 
each squair of the tower and four square windows with 
round tops in the lower section of the stepel, the second 
section to have eight and the semi section to have four 
paintings in imitation of sashes and glass as represented 
in the drauft above refered to, the window fraims to be 
boxed for but without waits—The building to have 
three out side and one inside dore eight pannels each, 
the two tower dores to be made with two leaves each 
three dorres frontices with palasters, the out side dores 
to be finished with proportioned Collums and pitched or 
raked pediments over dore frunted with a stoop to each 
dore composed of suteable timber and plank, with a 
sizabel circular platform and an easy flight of steps. 

“The roof of the building to be framed with nine 
pairs principals to be secured with iron stirrip, bolts and 
screws wherever they are represented in a draft now in 
the hands of the board of trustees. The Shingles of the 
roof to be painted with two coats spanish brown, the 
steple painted with three coats white lead, the cornishes 
dores window Sashes & frames and frontices with two 
coats white lead, the flooring to be framed with Sills 
fourteen by ten inch to be ten feet distant from each 
other, with a sufficient quantity of sizable Joice, The 
gallarys framed with frunt beems twelve by ten in thick 
with Joice framed in wall plates worked in the wall and 


38 


well braised to prevent spreding,—The lower floor to be 
laid with pitch pine plank groved and matched.”! 

At the same meeting at which these specifications 
were recorded, articles of agreement were entered into 
with the builder, Elisha Putnam, involving an outlay for 
construction of £3250, to be paid by instalments. In 
May, the board began to call for part of the loans which, 
in the previous year, had been offered, as already stated. 
The need of more funds was imperative. On May 27, 
the trustees “Resolved that the Rev4 John McDonald 
be requested to go to N. York and such other places as 
he shall think most advisable to solicit contributions for 
compleating our present under taking.” The long parch- 
ment subscription list of May, 1795, circulated under this 
resolution, is yet preserved carefully by this church, and 
is doubly interesting because it bears the autograph 
signatures of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Alexander 
Hosack, Brockholst Livingston, Gerard Bancker, Hugh 
Gaine, Gabriel Furman, and other celebrities in state- 
craft, science and letters. At a subsequent meeting 
(June 8) Jacob Wright was requested to accompany the 
minister to New York and other places to garner in 
assistance, and Trustees Eights, Woodruff and Webster 
were constituted a building committee. The name of 
Charles R. Webster, “father of printing’ in Albany, 
deserves more than passing notice. 

The minister went on his mission and, meanwhile, 
the Rev. Walter Monteith acted as a supply.2 Soon 
after Mr. McDonald’s return, namely, on September 11, 
1795, the Session placed their pastor under charges 
before the Albany Presbytery on account of “reports 
apparently too well grounded, tending to criminate the 
Revd. John McDonald’s moral character.” Thus, amidst 
the difficulties attending large building operations, 
accompanied by great financial obligations, the church 
now suffered in its very vital spiritual relations. The 


1M S. Clerk’s Book. 
2M S. Clerk’s Book, January 27 and April 6, 1796. 


39 


records of the Session reflect the sorrow of the congre- 
gation. The Session sought the advice and direction of 
Presbytery “in the present difficult and trying circum- 
stances.” The relations of Mr. McDonald with the 
Albany Presbytery were dissolved, but recommendation 
was made to the church “to receive Mt- McDonald [as 
a member], upon proper application, after public con- 
fession.”+ In January 1796, we find the trustees 
engaged in settling accounts with him.? He continued, 
however, to preach in Albany, after being deposed, for 
a number of years, gathered about him his adherents, 
and formed what is now the United Presbyterian 
Church. He died in September, 1821.* 

On February 7, 1796, a contract was made for finish- 
ing the interior of the new church, amounting to £963, 
New York currency. 

Governor George Clinton had presented a lot of 
ground on Main Street, in Lansingburgh, to the church, 
and the trustees ordered that it be disposed of at “Public 
Sale” on or before the second Tuesday of February, 
1797, to provide funds for the new church. It was sold 
for £50. Disagreement arose with the builder, Elisha 
Putnam, over the two contracts that had been entered 
into with him. They agreed, on November 18 and 24, 
1797, to submit their differences to two arbitrators. 
Arrangements were made for locating, numbering and 
disposing of seats. Pew number 122 was reserved for 
the minister’s family, and number 62 for the sexton. 
Apparently there were all told 122 pews on the main 
floor. The annual rental varied from $4. to $10.50 per 
year for pews in the body of the church, and $3. to $7. 
for front seats in the gallery. The pew committee, on 
January 27, 1797, reported the amount obtained at public 


IMS. Sesston Records, vol. 1, pp. 1, 2, 16. 

2M S. Clerk’s Book. 

8Blayney. First Presbyterian Church, (1877), p. 20. The reasons for which 
McDonald was deposed from the ministry are given in the history of the Albany 
Presbytery, inJournal of Presby. Hist. Society, vol.3, pp. 228, 231-232. The Presbytery 
of Albany was erected by the Synod of New York and New Jersey, on October 
8,1790. Jbzd, p. 224. 


40 


sale for pews to be $8398.75, and assured annual income 
therefrom as $525.50.2 

This second house of worship was located at what 
is to-day South Pearl and Beaver Streets. In 1831 it 
was considerably enlarged, remodelled and improved, 
and was described in a newspaper of that day as “the 
most elegantly finished church in the city.”? After the 
occupation of the third edifice, the second building was 
sold to the Congregationalists. Subsequently, used for 
business purposes, it was known as “Beaver Block,’ 
and what remains is to-day part of a theatre. 

About August, 1796, the trustees and Session were 
negotiating with David S. Bogart to be their pastor. On 
February 17, 1797, the trustees made further provision 
to signalize the Presbytery for “prosecuting the Call” of 
Mr. Bogart as pastor.t He seems to have been in 
service before the middle of March, when an account of 
his was ordered paid by the board. On July 29, the 
trustees deliberated about “the propriety of raising the 
salary of the Rev@- David S. Bogart,” and suggested a 
compromise. He seems not to have been satisfied, for, 
on September 11, 1797, the Albany Presbytery, at his 
own solicitation, dismissed him from Presbytery and 
dissolved his connection with the Albany congregation.® 
In June, he had requested a vacation “for a few weeks 
in hopes of recovering his health,” by taking “a Journey 
to the Southward.”* Apparently, on account of ill- 
health and the financial difficulties in the congregation, 
he had concluded to go back to Southampton, L. I., from 
whence he had come to Albany.’ 

At this period, the congregation often listened to 
sermons of Dr. John Blair Smith, first president of 
Union College (1795). It was he who preached at the 
opening of their second house of worship. It was he 


4MS. Clerk’s Book. 

2Munsell. Annals of Albany, vol.9, p. 230. 

3Blayney, pp. 54-55. 

4Bogart was a licentate of the Reformed Dutch Synod, but was taken under 
the care of the Albany Presbytery.—Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Soctety, 
vol. 3, p. 229. 

5 MS. Clerk’s Book. 

6MS. Session Records, vol. 1, p. 24. 

7Blayney, pp. 20-21. 


41 


who brought about the pastorate of Eliphalet Nott—a 
pastorate begun on October 3, 1798, and terminated in 
August, 1804, when Dr. Nott was inducted as the third 
president of Union College. It was in this year (1804) 
that Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who had 
attended services in the First Church, fought the duel 
which robbed Hamilton of his life, and the nation of one 
of its greatest master-minds. Dr. Nott preached a 
funeral eulogy—a sermon against duelling—which 
obtained wide celebrity.* 

The immediate successors of Dr. Nott were: John 
B. Romeyn, from December 5, 1804, till November, 
1808; and William Neill, from September 14, 1809, till 
August 20, 1816. These three former pastors of this 
church were Moderators of the General Assembly of the 
denomination—Dr. Romeyn in 1810, Dr. Nott in 1811, 
and Dr. Neill in 1815. During the pastorate of Dr. 
Neill, the Second Presbyterian Church was organized 
(1813) and it was he who preached the dedicatory 
sermon. The Third Presbyterian Church was organized 
in 1817, and the Fourth Church in 1829. Albany now 
had four Presbyterian congregations, whilst New York 
City had nineteen. , 

Extension of the national and religious life was 
assured by the termination of the second war with 
Great Britain and the inception of a reign of peace. That 
war also terminated the formative period of Presby- 
téerianism in Albany. 

We have elaborated the temporalities of the begin- 
nings of the Presbyterian church in Albany, because 
written records and printed sources deal largely with 
this aspect. The spiritual forces are hidden; are written 
in the hearts of men and women; are expressed in the 
deeds that “speak louder than words’; for “by their 
fruits ye shall know them.” The contributions of the 
Presbyterian church to the civic and religious life of 
Albany were honorable and important. 


1Blayney, pp. 22, 23. 


42 


OL 


wi 


